


Love Letters don't get written like this anymore...

by YawningOverTheTapestries



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bookstores, Chance Meetings, M/M, Pining Sherlock, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YawningOverTheTapestries/pseuds/YawningOverTheTapestries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times a browser in a shop caught Sherlock's eye, without getting much attention in return, at least, not straightaway.</p>
<p>And one time a very brave, carefully placed message paid off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Letters don't get written like this anymore...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magikspell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikspell/gifts).



V

 

The first time is startling.

That fact is a surprise in itself; Sherlock’s not expecting to be startled at all.

 

_He’s_ not exactly someone who _can’t_ melt into a crowd, unlike Sherlock - who really does stand out in a crowd.

Crowds are peculiar things. They all look equally unfriendly, in shops, huge enclosed spaces, indoors, outdoors - but some of them are, in fact, pretty inviting. This one is, certainly: it’s all people here for books.

 

He’s -

_5’7”, mid-thirties, blonde, dark eyes; ex-military from his stance, and the cane – recently returned from the Middle East._ He cranes up for a higher shelf, up on the balls of his feet and hoiking back a sleeve: there’s the tan-line round his wrist. He almost looks awkward, his balance shifted and trying to rearrange itself without anything for him to lean on.

 

What’s he picked? _Moss-green calico-wrapped hardback with gold lettering:_ The Invisible Man _by H. G. Wells._

_Oh, the irony!_

His gaze lasts on the cover – _nostalgia? An old favourite from university?_ He opens it, and is mildly surprised at the extravagant artwork flooding the soft grey inside covers. The cane ends up propped on the lower shelves, while he starts reading.

He’s lost to the words. Doesn’t register Sherlock whatsoever.

_Of course he doesn’t._

_Are you trying to stare a gift horse in the mouth?! Stop Staring!!!_ Sherlock nearly, embarrassingly, implodes, morphing into six feet of blinking and gasping for too much air and noticing how hard his heart has abruptly sped up.

_Leave him to his book. You’re not here to chat up handsome ex-military ordinary browsers. You’re here to find something for your historical case studies collection. You’re not even in the right sodding section! Put your head back on._

 

Oh no, he’s looking up. _Why is he so gorgeous? And why is he so…_

Sherlock is still impolitely fixed to the floor, trying to decide on a better word than _normal_ (in a place that hallows the proliferation of the English language, of all places), and wishing he’d had the guts to pretend to get lost in a book, just to prevent himself from ending up in this state.

 

_He’s got beautiful eyes – no. Stop this._ Sherlock’s probably blushing now, absent-mindedly poking at the corner of his mouth, and gives him a prudent look, before gliding away towards the non-fiction section at the back of the shop.

Thank _heaven_ for the quiet, civil atmosphere in a bookshop – in any other multi-people-environment he’d almost definitely be expected to _say something._

_His eyes are blue. Dark North-Atlantic ultramarine_ : that’s the thought that wrestles in Sherlock’s head, with that which registered, by some miracle, the flirtatious yet amused grin tugging at the stranger’s features, as those startling eyes dropped back to the pages.

 

 

 

IV

 

Sherlock finds himself in Waterstone’s again out of boredom. No clients for over a week, Lestrade still hasn’t forgiven him for getting into a fight with those tourists in Clapham, and Mrs Hudson finally hit her limit when she found dead sparrows in one of her empty jars, and she actually threw him out of the house in hysteria.

_God_ he’s bored. He pores aimlessly over Sylvia Plath and Neil Gaiman novels, and dares to wistfully remember the handsome ashen-haired stranger he flushed like a wide-eyed hormone-driven teenager in front of three weeks ago. And orders himself to get over it seconds later.

The cycle repeats five times.

 

Then, as if by some almighty magic, a clear, hushed voice floats from somewhere behind him.

“Hello again,”

 

It’s much less of a startle than the first time. And it’s a _really_ nice surprise.

Not that he feels this is an appropriate moment to actually say something back. For a tiny moment, Sherlock is completely floored, at how this man, so unassuming, has caught his eye.

 

It’s a little quieter here today. And Sherlock can really see him, up close, parts of him in the gaps between books, in the standing bookcase, separating their aisles from each other.

Who else could it possibly be? There’s a smile, a playful glance, fleeting as he pulls a paperback of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ out from its place. Sherlock can’t tear his eyes away from that face, shamelessly taking in each detail, the furrow in his brow, the deep set of his eyes, those full cheeks, those fine creases round his eyes that illuminate his smile…

He wanders back towards the sci-fi classics, and they don’t exchange another word, even though they notice each other, a silent duet of give and take, for over half an hour.

Something is tensely growing, in the small space separating them from each other, something that seems to amplify the odd intimacy of being in a tight space, with anyone, stranger or otherwise. It doesn’t expand, but it intensifies – they don’t exchange words, but they’d have to be blind to not realise what has drawn them to each other.

He’s literally _this_ close. It’s almost too much. He’s blissfully admiring watercolours on the covers of Philip Pullman fantasies. There’s the girl bringing boxes of new releases from the stock cupboards, and when she thinks they won’t notice, she grins in their direction. Because Sherlock doesn’t look like he knows how ridiculously sweet he looks, giving another book lover the same longing gaze.

 

 

 

III

 

_Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is a pattern._

 

It’s been literally four short days, and Sherlock’s back, upon request from Mycroft to pick up… something with ‘Special Members Interest’ on its cover. Or a book of cake recipes. Just to see his reaction.

But all Sherlock can see, inscribed into the linings of his eyelids in flourescent marker, is the rule of Incidences.

 

Because his soldier is back.

He should be nose-deep in _Brave New World_  by now, tucked beside the opposite radiator. It’s pouring buckets outside, and even though he was here when Sherlock arrived, his mahogany jacket is still damp and heavy on his shoulders. He’s folded into the chair until the book is encased in his lap, leaning down and forward, elbow on knee and cheek cupped in his hand. The flat yet forlorn expression draws Sherlock close and robs him of his words all at once.

His cane is no longer accompanying him. Seems like his therapist is giving him some tough love. After all, psychosomatic injury is merely one symptom of something worse.

 

_Oh, for God’s sake, that’s just being harsh. And you’re not helping him or yourself by this stalking-for-cowards._

Stalking? Doesn’t seem like it. They’ve seen each other three times, and acknowledged each other’s existence, so far.

With a disparaged sniff, Sherlock brushes raindrops off the bridge of his nose. He ignores the offensively prim black-and-white socio-political waste of tree, and gives the recipe book some attention. Smoothing a hand over the shiny cover and shiny pages, checking it’s suitably filled with eye-watering pastels and marzipan-cream-strawberry pornography, but he can’t dismiss what he sees in the corner of his eye.

 

It’s a moment when Sherlock is wholeheartedly grateful for the welcoming atmosphere of a bookshop. For once, it’s a blessing to not feel out of place crammed into a small area. And very few are fussed about picking a place to shelter from rain. And yet, all the while he wants so badly to have the guts to actually talk to him. Never this badly, before today. It’s incredible.

Sherlock keeps up his character, but he can’t stop contemplating what might be going through the man’s mind. What there might be, outside this shop, and elsewhere in the city – Sherlock’s already settled on London being his home – his life in military service, his family… and whatever made him want somewhere quiet and undemanding to go: judging by how often he comes here, how he evidently isn’t here just to read.

He notices he’s being watched, in the blink of an eye, which should be enough to embarrass Sherlock. But he offers a thin smile, to a comforting face, which rouses another torrent of sympathy in Sherlock.

It’s such an alien composite of feelings for Sherlock, and he doesn’t have a clue what to do.

 

But instead of succumbing to the want to rub out that melancholy expression from his forehead, Sherlock pays for both books, and, raking a wet curl off his forehead, he resumes eye contact with the sad figure still in his chair, long enough to say he empathises (well, to say he understands probably would cross the line) before heading back out into the rain.

 

 

 

II

 

Winter slowly melts and dries to become spring, and Sherlock sees nothing of his soldier all through these months.

He thinks up all manner of different reasons for his disappearance, each one unique and a little more ridiculous than the last. And Sherlock doesn’t exactly help matters either; during one week in January he comes into the shop literally every other day, each time a little more despondent as there’s still no sign of him.

He puts his head back on when February arrives; back home on Baker Street, _he sees him!_ Just once. Across the road. For about two seconds: late at night on the 13th he and presumably-his-girlfriend get thrown out of a bar, she yells abuse at him, and he has to hail a cab alone.

Mercifully he’s too wasted to notice his admirer, who’s dangerously close to having to pick his eyes and jaw up off the pavement.

 

 

For twelve nervous days Sherlock awaits the next glimpse of his soldier, wondering whether or not to go back to Waterstone’s. And wondering even more, what he’d be doing in the aftermath of being dumped.

And, at the beautiful, fateful hand of irony, Sherlock has to drop by, searching for a very special brand of notebook as a very special kind of paper is needed for his latest experiment, and there propped up between two wallfuls of comedic books and TV show tie-ins, right where Sherlock would never expect to see him, there he is.

He’s dog-tired, nose-deep in a copy of one of Stephen Fry’s memoirs, and laughing under his breath as if he, quite rightly, deserves a laugh. Not really much worse-for-wear, but definitely as lovely as he was when Sherlock first saw him.

 

Sherlock feels relief burst his lungs, taking a breath properly for the first time in ages. _For the love of God, Holmes, you make Yellowstone National Park look like a desert. And you don’t even know his name. When are you going to behave yourself?_

Taking the opportunity to conceal himself between the bookcases, Sherlock pores over his soldier, as if this basket case of a man is one of Oscar Wilde’s literary masterpieces (Sherlock never really cared for classics, but he has to adore a tart sense of humour).

 

 

 

I

 

Their fifth encounter in Waterstone’s finishes fast, over almost before Sherlock realises what’s happening.

The flow of customers is fairly leisurely, but Sherlock’s found a still corner of the shop, to stop and think for a moment, and, grabbing the first hardback he sees, he leans on it as he rewrites a handful of notes from a crime scene.

 

He doesn’t want to move, upon hearing someone come up beside him, stretching upwards, a strained voice going “Come here… _come to daddy, that’s it,_ ” – Sherlock’s heard that voice before, surely? Surely that’s what explains the infuriating pinken of his cheeks.

Yep, it’s _him_. He’s reaching for something on a high shelf again, in that admittedly-very-endearing way only a short person can. Sherlock is suddenly _this_ close, seeing his compact, tightly-muscled frame properly, until they’re both back on comfortable levels, and Sherlock actually sees why there’s that shine in his beautiful dark eyes: he’s holding a match of the book Sherlock is.

He has to smile blithely, looking down at it: Jasper Fforde, dragons in bright scarlet and mint green. But of course, as quickly as he’d appeared, he goes.

Sherlock isn’t lost, for once, at his being happy that this man has cheered up. And seems fine with his being pushed for time.

 

But there is one thing Sherlock won’t argue with. And he doesn’t care about possibly being on a dangerous slide to losing sanity; at this moment he only cares about _this_.

Sherlock’s idiotic side, suitably unpredictable, subsides for just long enough for him to remind himself, that these chance meetings will happen and overlap in their own time. If he can’t fight these tiny possibilities, he can plant a flag at a place he knows they both use as a point of reference. And it’s up to his careful drawing of patterns, between the facts he knows already, to decide where.

 

 

 

 

0

 

John doesn’t get to see him for nearly a month. And he thanks God that Jennifer never noticed, because she’d humiliate him even worse than she did the day before Valentine’s Day. That was harsh enough.

Oh, she wants to dump him? Big deal. The ‘relationship’ doesn’t matter anymore. John has things like the next crazy shift at the surgery, and another half-dozen unread messages from Harry, to worry about. And still there’s _The Hunger Games_ and _Catching Fire_ , both new-bought and already poked and prodded at the corners. But they don’t get read. John can’t concentrate.

 

Somewhere on the other side of London, or on the other side of the world, is that tall dark handsome person, and John has fallen under his spell.

That first time they fell over each other, John had clearly startled him, because he’d gone crimson, but it took the next glimpse, and the next, and the next, to convince John that he truly had existed after all.

Oh, the old rugged head of Three Continents Watson rearing up at the _perfect_ moment; no wonder he blushed like that. John _is_ a chronic flirt.

 

He shepherds himself back into single life again, which gets utterly tedious between fixed appointments. He knows he’s survived worse, but he can’t deny, if he ever wants to stand any chance of seeing that dramatic swirl of coat tails again, there’s one place he has to go.

If anyone can scour a place like a bookshop, it’s John, but he can’t do it too hard without it getting weird, so after an uncomfortably short length of time, he rediscovers the comfortable place by sci-fi classics, and alternates between it, and a shelf where there’s the _Hunger Games_ trilogy.

 

Maybe he’ll acknowledge the fact that he has no need to move. Or maybe someone is watching out for him after all. But whether or not it’s true in John’s head, it’s certainly true enough for there to be a piece of paper, torn out from a Moleskine and worked with mad clever handwriting, tucked beside the neon-toughened cover of _Mockingjay_. The copy at the end of the shelf, parted from the three copies on the shelf above it.

John will have plenty of times to wonder just how humiliating it is, to have a tall man smirk at him as he claws up shelves for something above his head. He just doesn’t know it yet.

He needs to read the piece of paper first.

 

 

_By the time you read this, I will probably be out of this shop and outside the Caffè Nero at the end of the road. Coffee?_

_Please excuse my behaviour when we first bumped into each other. You did startle me. You are very attractive, and yet under any other circumstances, I would probably have never noticed you. Bookshops are peculiar. They offer a very inviting environment, but one has to keep quiet as everyone’s browsing and reading and minding their own business. I normally don’t frequent such places unless I can’t find anywhere else convenient._

_If, by some minuscule chance we had met elsewhere, I would certainly not make any impression of being shy. It is strictly not part of my personality, but I expect you have good reason to assume otherwise._

_I could try and explain myself, but I don’t think this notebook page will be able to encompass that. But my first impression of you went thusly:_

_Your haircut, the way you carry yourself, say military, along with the tan lines round your wrists: You’ve been abroad recently but not sunbathing. The age of your clothes compared to when they were last laundered: they say you’ve been away for a long while. You were carrying a cane, and limping badly until you were standing still, at which time you seemed to forget you even had a cane with you. Invalided out from military service, certainly traumatic, and I suspect you are in therapy, yet you mask your nightmares a bit too well. You didn’t hesitate to smile at me. It’s not an uncommon fate, to find a void in one’s life after such an event, and wanting something to get immersed into._

_But to be blunt, the proximity of our first encounter meant it was your good looks that caught my attention first (this self-deprecation is rather unusual for me. Don’t tell anyone)._

_After this, I had very little else to observe from you, apart from your impeccable taste in books. What I still cannot get away from, is how ordinary you are, but what might lie beneath the surface. I hope you don’t consider yourself an open book. I seriously doubt you deserve it._

_SH_

John reads it quickly, then he takes his time, going over it again, and again. Each time his eyes widen further.

_No way. It was him, he’s followed me, and he deduced which shelf I’d look at next. And left a note for me to find._

_I’m certainly getting laid tonight._

 

He’s annoyed with his subconscious for producing that afterthought. But his being flattered by compliments is matched only by his amazement at the brain it took to compile everything written here.

He can get a copy of _Mockingjay_ another time. But there won’t be another time for the author of this piece of work, which disappears into a pocket as John heads straight for the door.

 

 

He’s leaning against a tree, its black branches heaped with shell-pink blossoms. He’s incredible, this close, and John feels a little exposed, stepping up to him in daylight. Six feet tall and impeccably dressed, with skin almost eerily pale and a mop of dark curls. The butterflies holed up in John's gut are all desperate to burst free.

“I’m not gay, might I just point that out?” he asks lightly, his voice faulting a little.

“You don’t like labels, I don’t have a problem with that.”

_Whoa, his voice._ It’s deep, honey-rich. And that face, those piercing eyes and amazing cheekbones and -

 

John runs his tongue over his lips, attempting to rehearse what to say in his head. “I’m John," 

He offers his hand for John to shake. “Sherlock.” For some reason they both have an impish smile on their faces. “Listen, how did you… that letter, did you want to - ”

“Well, I knew my chances of seeing you again would deplete severely if something didn’t happen.”

“That’s good to know.”

“You have to admire the irony, though.”

 

John does, alright. He keeps up his fervent gaze at Sherlock, wanting to hear him say it.

“I meant every word in that letter.”

Now John blushes, a sight to behold in itself. “ _This_ is the sort of thing you read in a soppy romance. Two strangers meet in a crowd and suddenly one of them is _amazing_ – I’m just wondering what the catch is.”

Sherlock has to stop and consider this. “Well, now you mention it - ”

John gives a light laugh, and Sherlock can’t be sure if he was being sarcastic or not. So instead he just shrugs, before stepping pointedly towards the café entrance. “Shall we go in?”

“Oh, yes, and you can tell me how you do that.”

“John, I wouldn’t know where to start.” He’s joking, and they both know they already have.

**Author's Note:**

> On a completely unrelated note: I squeezed in loads of my favourite books and authors. If you're just here for the Johnlock, please ignore that fact.


End file.
